Structural and Strategic Family Therapy

Assignment 1: Structural Versus Strategic Family Therapies
Although structural therapy and strategic therapy are both used in family therapy, these therapeutic approaches have many differences in theory and application. As you assess families and develop treatment plans, you must consider these differences and their potential impact on clients. For this Assignment, as you compare structural and strategic family therapy, consider which therapeutic approach you might use with your own client families.Structural and Strategic Family Therapy
Learning Objectives
Students will:
• Compare structural family therapy to strategic family therapy
• Create structural family maps
• Justify recommendations for family therapy
To prepare:
• Review this week’s Learning Resources and reflect on the insights they provide on structural and strategic family therapies.
• Refer to Gerlach (2015) in this week’s Learning Resources for guidance on creating a structural family map.

Major Points of Structural Family Therapy and Strategic Family Therapy

            Structural family therapy was developed by a psychologist named Salvador Minuchin. Based on this form of therapy, he outlined that, dysfunctions in families not only lie in an individual but the entire family unit. Therefore, this therapeutic model purposes to understand some of the rules that silently exist in families and potentially lead to dysfunctional patterns (Colapinto, 2015). It does so through foundations from systemic models and relationships which exist within members of a family. It should also be noted that structural family therapy is gradual in nature and is integrated with interventions that disclose major causes through self-analysis and meditation to influence change (Colapinto & Lee, 2017).

On the other hand, Milton Erickson discovered strategic family therapy whose aim is to influence change within the shortest time possible. It maximizes on comprehensive psychological reviews of some of the issues faced by people in a family at a personal level. When compared to structural family therapy, strategic family therapy is more practical and caring as it considered both the external and internal environment of a therapy setting (Horigian, Anderson, & Szapocznik, 2016). Its intricacy influences congruency in a family setup through the provision of alternatives that maximize personal strengths and promotes change in difficult situations. This means that strategic family therapy requires collaboration amongst members of a family. Structural and Strategic Family Therapy

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Comparison between Structural Family Therapy and Strategic Family Therapy

As suggested by Colapinto & Lee (2017), the framework that forms structural family therapy is based on the notion that families undergo challenges and have some dysfunctional patterns. Therefore, in order to obtain cohesion and a family network that is well-rebalanced; these structures need to be changed. On the other hand, strategic family therapy emphasizes patterns, hierarchy, and processes which exist within a family.  Therefore, strategic family therapy modifies personal interactions to address dysfunctional patterns and behavior with a common goal of influencing change in a family’s structure (Horigian, Anderson, & Szapocznik, 2016). A major similarity between strategic and structural family therapy is that they focus on influencing change in families by modifying behavior, disrupting the patterns of hierarchy and promoting active communication. They also purpose to change the interpersonal relations which exist among family members for purposeful family outcomes. A major difference that should be noted is in the interventions that each therapy uses to influence change within families and the approach taken for the entire process. Structural family therapy emphasizes on changing dysfunctional communication patterns and behaviors between relations to change the structure of a family whereas strategic family therapy relies on a change to occur naturally (Colapinto, 2015).

Strengths and Weaknesses

One of the strengths of both structural and strategic family therapy is that they value the influence of external and internal networks within families which can only be known through assessing, interpreting, evaluating, and modifying family dysfunctions. This increases their applicability in providing solutions that are adequate and sustainable to families during conflicts. It is also evident that the structural family theory is not only direct but also simple and concrete (Colapinto & Lee, 2017). This increases the ability of its usability in clinical practice. It should, however, be noted that it has only been proven to be effective for use among children and adults with very little evidence on its use with adults. It is a therapy which focuses on actions which don’t consider gender and power but has a weak theoretical basis that excludes past issues of trauma and abuse which can be contributing factors to present dysfunctional patterns in a family (Szapocznik et al., 2015). Besides, the whole process in structural family therapy is usually controlled by the therapist. This disempowers change within the family and amongst individuals.Structural and Strategic Family Therapy

Another common finding is that both strategic and structural family therapies focus more on interpersonal relations but fail to address significant issues which are linked to personality, and emotions and how they are likely to impact a family network (Horigian, Anderson, & Szapocznik, 2016). In comparison, strategic family therapy is preferable as it tends to address the fear of change in a person. However, for individuals with axis II personality disorders and cognitive dysfunction, it has a weak basis for assessing them.

Family Map with Recommendations for Therapy

For the purpose of this assignment, “Charles’s” family members will be used to create the family map. The name Charles has just been used for the purpose of observing the HIPAA guidelines on patient privacy and confidentiality. Ms. Charles is 38 years old, divorced and with two children. One of her daughters Carol is 14 years old and her son Bryson is 8 years old. For the last 5 years, Ms. Charles has been living in New York after leaving an abusive marriage in Texas. The frequency of the physical and emotional abuse contributed to the intervention of law enforcement agencies to issue a restraining order which prohibited contact of his divorced husband with her and the children.

For this family, structural family therapy is the most recommended. This is attributed to the fact that both the mother and her two children are struggling to be integrated into a new environment with new family structures to adjust to the divorce. In order to determine alternative approaches that can be used to address maladaptive behavioral patterns, it will be mandatory to that some of the family subsystems are further explored (Williams, Foye & Lewis, 2016). In the entire process, the currently existing interpersonal relations between the mother and her children should be safeguarded. Structural and Strategic Family Therapy

References

Colapinto, J. (2015). Structural family therapy. In Handbook of family therapy (pp. 134-147). Routledge.

Colapinto, J., & Lee, W. Y. (2017). Complementarity in Structural Family Therapy. Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy, 1-3.

Horigian, V.E., Anderson, A. R., & Szapocznik, J. (2016). Taking Brief Strategic Family Therapy from Bench to Trench: Evidence Generation across Translational Phases. Family Processes, 55(3), 529-542.

Szapocznik, J., Muir, J. A., Duff, J. H., Schwartz, S. J., & Brown, C. H. (2015). Brief strategic family therapy: Implementing evidence-based models in community settings. Psychotherapy Research25(1), 121-133.

Williams, N. D., Foye, A., & Lewis, F. (2016). Applying structural family therapy in the changing context of the modern African American single mother. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy28(1), 30-47.Structural and Strategic Family Therapy